This course will introduce students to the theory of music, providing them with the skills needed to read and write Western music notation, as well as to understand, analyse, and listen informedly. It will cover material such as pitches and scales, intervals, clefs, rhythm, form, meter, phrases and cadences, and basic harmony.
This course covers the fundamentals of Western music theory, from the absolute basics to some more advanced concepts and, as such, is the perfect course for beginners and more experienced musicians alike.
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Enseigné par

Dr Michael Edwards

Dr Zack Moir

Teaching Fellow

Richard Worth

Dr Nikki Moran

Dr John Philip Kitchen, MA BMus PhD FRCO LRAM

Eli Appleby-Donald

Transcription

So, we found seven triads that we can derive from the major scale. We're now going to focus on the three major ones. That was the C-Major, [MUSIC] The F-Major, [MUSIC] And the G-Major,. [MUSIC] These ones are important. They've become important through time in a Common Practice classical music, and also in a lot of Jazz and Pop, and Rock. And, Folk music as well in fact. It's sometimes referred to as the Three Chord Trick. I'll start off by giving them their formal name. So the C-Major chord. [MUSIC] Built on the tonic is the Tonic triad. [MUSIC] The G-Major one, built on the fifth degree, is the Dominant. [MUSIC] And that refers to its importance in that name. The F-Major, [MUSIC] Is the Subdominant, one underneath the dominant. And there they are written out for you. And as lead sheet notation. Now, when we're harmonizing a melody, in the kind of music that we're talking about here, it's normal to have the melodic note be a member of a chord that's backing it. Okay? Not so much as we move into Jazz and 19th century classical music, or Rock in the 70s. But on the whole, we can expect to hear a strong melody note existing inside its chord. So, in other words, if I want my melody note to be a C. [MUSIC] In the key of C major then it's a good chance I am going to have a C-Major chord underneath it [MUSIC] Or maybe the F-Major chord [MUSIC] Because that also has a C in it. And so what we are going to do now is we are going to look at the major scale and see how each note can be harmonized by one of these three chords. So again, starting with my opening example C [Plays C] With a C-Major chord or with an F-Major chord [Plays chords] Now we move up to the note D the second note. [Plays D] And the only triad out of our three that has this is the G-Major triad. [Chord] So we're going to harmonize it with the dominant. [Chord] The next one, next note is E, and that exists in the tonic triad, in the C-Major. [Plays E] The next note in the scale is F, and that exists in the F-Major, the sub dominant. [Plays F] When we get back up to the G. Again we can have a G-Major chord with it, the dominant [MUSIC] Or we can have the C-Major called with it, [MUSIC] When we get to the A, this lives inside the F-Major chord, [MUSIC] Up to the B, and the chord that has that inside it is only the G-Major chord, so. [MUSIC]. And then when we get back to C again, we can finish on the C tonic. [MUSIC] We could also play the F-Major,. [MUSIC] But I think you'll hear that most likely our piece of music will finish [MUSIC] From the B. [MUSIC] With the G to the C, with the tonic chord. Again, this is really something you just have to sit down and play through for yourself. But you'll see that it totally works. And with those three chords, you could write a hit. Who knows, there's been quite a few like it. Now, - just hearing these three chords in a slightly different context, I could make them sound like this. [Chords sounding Classical] Or, they can sound like this. [Chords sounding Rock 'n Roll] So you can see, and you probably recognize both of those "sounds" that come from that. So that is your three chord trick. Your tonic. Your dominant. Your subdominant. And that's going to become more important in the coming lectures, especially in the later lectures in, series four and five. But for now, I just want to leave you with the fact that with the set of white notes, confining ourselves to just, white notes of the piano and C major scale, we found three different kinds of triads. We found all sorts of internal relationships which already give us the possibility of making music. [BLANK_AUDIO]